After a month or so of taking a “just turn off” approach to the smartphone. Here are some observations of my experience, some practical and maybe not so practical alternative technologies, and thoughts on the path forward.

It’s a mindset

For the first few weeks of my experiment I went more-or-less “cold turkey” on the smartphone. The phone was just off most of the time. Lately, I’ve been a little more willing to have it on to listen to podcasts or be reachable when needed. I’ve found that the attitudes developed during the first few weeks are useful: A very conscious awareness of when the phone is on and why, and an active antagonism towards letting it interrupt my train of thought. When it’s on, it’s on for one purpose that I choose and then gets turned off. I don’t, e.g., compulsively check email or “google” things just because it’s on.

Specifics - 90’s tech == Less ads

It turns out if you use older, single purpose devices for specific tasks, contemporary advertisers can’t reach you. They expect you to use your modern all-in-one advertising delivery platform. Just don’t. It will ruin their day.

What time is it?

You really don’t need your phone on to know the time. Look at a clock. Use an old-school watch. Sit down at your computer … time is everywhere. Look at the time on your standalone digital camera.

Kodak Moments, Pictures

I pulled out a vintage 2003 digital camera. 16MP + 5x optical zoom. Works great. No GPS tagging of photos. You have to choose to transfer them to your computer by popping out the SIM card or using a cable. Then you have to choose to add it (or not) to things like online photo albums.

This changes the defaults. Your pictures are not first and foremost in, e.g., Google’s cloud (which they can delete at will). They are on YOUR camera. They are on YOUR computer if you choose to them there. They are on their cloud, only if you choose to put them there.

We made physical picture albums up until about 2005. I have physical picture albums and photos for my family going back to the late 1800s. Maybe I should start making photo albums again.

Boom Box and CDs

I wanted to listen to music as I painted the back deck. I pulled out an old boom box and some of my old CDs. They were fine, but the cassette tapes I made of Queen albums in the 70s were starting to sound bad, loosing magnetism.

Where am I hiking? Maps and step counters.

On hikes I can use my watch’s step-counter to estimate distance and paper maps to plot my approximate location. No need to let the phone spoil the wilderness experience.

Star Trek

Yup. DVDs. There are some ads, but they are old. I do have my parents old TV with built-in VCR tape player and a small selection of their tapes. Have not gone there yet.

Books

I’m doing most of my reading in paper books. I’ve never been a fan of, e.g., kindles. It’s just a different experience.

News

For a mere $1066/year I could have the Washington Post delivered to my house. I hear they need subscribers right about now.

I read a number of news websites, but I’m poking back into RSS feeds (emacs, speaking of retro, has a nice text-only RSS reader)

Where to go from here?

For now, keeping the phone off most of the time is helping me regain control of my focus. I’ve become more conscious of when and why I turn it on and actively resist using it for any secondary purposes while it’s on.

Exploring retro technologies has been an amusing and arguably useful experiment. Many everyday tasks can be accomplished without the constant distraction of a smartphone. Bonus: no ads.

I haven’t owned a TV for most of the last 40 years, and I quit Facebook 8 years ago for the same reasons: to maintain control over my time and attention.

Moving forward, I’ll continue exploring life without the smart phone incrementally and may eliminate it.

Of course, the real battle is with my own willingness to be distracted. No tech fix will address that.